Ka t\u012baho mai he marama pai,
puta p\u014d rere wai, mai a P\u0101nia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the night is still and the moon is clear,
you can see P\u0101nia appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014Sam Freedman (n\u0101 Alby Bennett i whakam\u0101ori)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s begin by addressing the elephant in the room, or\u2014given the artist\u2019s enthusiasm for all things equine<\/a>\u2014the thoroughbred<\/em> in the room: who the heck is P\u0100NiA!? In the literature put out by Mokop\u014dpaki<\/a>, the art space on Karangahape Road with which she is associated, she has been referred to repeatedly as an \u201cenigmatic but always interesting \u00fcber-cool-girl, artist-about-town.\u201d P\u0100NiA! is so cool, in fact, that we don\u2019t know who she really is. When she pounds the pavement, it is without paparazzi. Her chosen anonymity has led to some daring guesswork. In a recent review<\/a> of her current exhibition-cum-performance project at Te Tuhi in Pakuranga,The True Artist Helps the World by Asking for Trust<\/em>, critic John Hurrell ventures that she is \u201cof M\u0101ori and Dutch extraction\u201d, presumably basing this on the content of a number of the works on show, since the idea has not been put forward anywhere else. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n *<\/p>\n\n\n\n